Qualities of a Good Politicians

Previously, I have argued that principled is a bad quality in a politician. This leaves the question: what makes a good politician? What should one look for in a leader?

Before answering that question, we need to actually answer a more fundamental question: What do we want for politicians? Calling them "political leaders," we usually say that we want them to "lead." Then, we would relate to how, says, a CEO leads a company: by defining and articulating its vision, by taking initiative. To borrow from Christianity, we would imagine that our political leaders like shepherds, herding us toward a better world.

Well, except that most people would object to the whole politician-as-shepherd analogy above. In politics, most of us already have our own sets of principles. In fact, most of us even have policy preferences. A Democrat, for example, may want better welfare, more educational investment, more conservation, and peaceable approach to foreign policies; a Republican may want smaller government, national dignity, traditional family values, and lower taxes. Many of us may even champion specific policies.

Thus, we need no shepherd. Instead, we need agents of change. We want our politicians to make our principles a reality. Or, at the very least, working toward realization of our principles.

A politician quality depends on how well that politician realizes collective principles, dreams, and desires the people. Important (very important, in fact) disclaimer: this means that if the people want racism, terrorism, etc., a good politician will unleash such evils. Luckily, most human beings are, fundamentally, good. Furthermore, the job of teaching values do not belong to politicians. So, we are good there. Back to the topic: for politicians, good qualities are those that help the implementation of their people's wills.

So, what are those qualities.

First: engagement. Some synonyms: charisma, inspiring. Actions start with wills. Wills start will caring and engagement. Without engagement, there is no will; without will, there is no action; without action, countries collapse. The first, and most important job, of a politician is to engage the population, to make them believe in themselves, to instill empowerment in their hearts. Without this, nothing else happens.

Second: unity. Synonyms: empathy, public trust. What differentiate a community (be it a town, a state, or a nation) from an individual is sheer quantity. However, quantity is useless if the community tears itself into many small warring factions. This is the immediate cause of most state failures. For a community to mobilize its force to bear on its challenges, the people must unite; they must trust each other; they must feel for each other. The leaders of the community must foster this unity, or else the community will remain a sand castle: collapse at first wave. To solve big problems, to defend dignity, to make its principles walk on this earth, a community must unite. And it's the politicians job to ensure this unity.

Third: communication. There are 2 sides to communication: to the people and from the people. The former includes analysis of the situation, explanation of choices, and report of progress; the latter includes composition of public will, translation of will to concrete policies, and resolve of grievances. Communication coordinates collective actions; without it, the mass people would spend more time stepping on each other toes than getting things done. Public communication poses 2 major challenges: one, there are a lot of people (anywhere from a few millions to 1.5 billions); two, the policy choices are generally complex (quick, should interest rate be 1.5% or 1.75%?) and the people generally don't have time (people have full-time jobs to do, you know). The politicians, as agents of change, must facilitate this. First, they must bridge between people and communities so that millions can share ideas; second, they must simplify the issues and do the research on the behalf of their people.

Forth: transparency. We talked about trust between citizens above. Now, let's talk about trust between citizens and their governments. Without trust between citizens and governments, the people won't let the politicians to lead, to bridge, to speak and act on their behalves. And how to build this trust? Its basis is transparency.

Fifth: loyalty and bravery. If trust opens the door for citizenship activism, patriotism and loyalty drive the citizens into the door. However, those are 2-way streets: for citizens to fight for their countries, their leaders must first fight for them. Loyalty and bravery from politicians give the citizens the fuzzy feeling that let them charge onto Normandy beach heads, or to sip coffee while bombs and bullets whizzed by.

Engagement, unity, communication, transparency, and loyalty. A good politician must have these 5 characters, at least to some degree. Absence (or, even a very low level) of any of these spells disaster. Well, maybe not disaster. I would not expect a dorky (i.e. non-engaging, very uncharistmatic) to go far. However, if a person without the 5 grabs power, one must sunder for the poor country (or, probably the stupid country) led by such person.

Principled, or, The Worst Quality of a Politician

I know of a truly principled leader. His name is Adolf Hitler. In pursuing his principle, i.e. the purging of undesirables, he diverted military resources into their gathering and killing. These very resources were, more or less, exactly what German army needed to capture Moscow before Russian winter befell upon them. After that, all was history.

I know of a truly unprincipled leader. His name is Abraham Lincoln. Elected by radicals wanting the end of slavery, he made one concession after another to please the border states into staying in the Union. Over and over, he repeated that his war fought for union of the states, not end of state rights or slavery. Obviously, like any unprincipled person, he changed his tone when the situation asked for such change: midway through the war, he proclaimed the emancipation of the slaves.

These days, when people speak of good politicians, or "statesmen" (sorry, ladies, history has spoken, and it's quite sexist until last century), they speak of principles and sticking to those. From right to left, people are calling upon their leaders to stick to their principles, to refuse compromises. To refuse the approach of others shows strength, they say, and to compromise is spineless. And, obviously, the government promptly grinds to a stop. Funny enough, then people blame lack of principle for this failure to govern.

Who are the most principled leaders? The tyrants, the dictators, the despots. After all, what is "principled" anyway? Isn't it to do whatever you want (that is, you believe in) regardless of opposition? When a leader decides upon only his own preferences, what do you call such leader? Tyranny.

Frankly, when people speak of "principles," people actually ask for something else. People ask for their leaders to make the right calls, especially when oppositions are wrong. Here is the catch: how do you know what is right and wrong? Take Holy Roman Empire. When Charles V pursued his role as Catholic emperor, he drove his empire and kingdom into the greatest power of Europe; when Ferdinand II pursued the same thing, he drove his empire into Thirty Years War and degradation. Take Germany (or, more precisely, Prussia). When Frederick II (Frederick the Great) positioned his kingdom in the middle of a massive dual-front war, he held out long enough for his enemies to disintegrate, gained Silesia for his kingdom and forever glory for his military skills; when Wilhelm II positioned his empire in the middle of a massive war, Germany was defeated, her youth was slaughtered, her industrial lands and colonies were pawned to France and England.

Humans are not God. Situations are not frozen. Events are not static. To err is to human. Last time I check, all politicians, good, bad, or middle ground, have not attained omnipotence yet. Thus, they will, from time to time, hold the wrong beliefs. To hang onto those beliefs, to refuse reconsideration of policies, to close ears to opposition will, sooner or later, bring about disasters.

Therefore, principled is the (one would argue, defining) quality of tyrants, of dictators, of despots. A good politician must avoid it. Now, given that a good politician must also act well, such politician will probably do well to conceal his avoidance of principles. Oh well, such is life.

The Stupidity of Hating The Government

One of the defining feature of American politics, I believe, is how much people dislike or outright hate "The Government." Why the quotation marks and capitalization? Well, because people don't even seem to know what they hate exactly. They just hate "The Government." It oppresses them, steals from them, coerces  them, spies on them, carries out immoral and inexcusable deeds. Then, depends on where a person stands in the political scales, The Government seems to do very different things. A right-winger would complain about how The Government takes away will to work, feeds lazy people, oppresses freedom of the church. A left-winger would complain that The Government fails to help poor people, gives to the corporations, and enslaves itself to the church. Notice that contradicting people generally accuse The Government of doing exactly what the other part would do.

It's my opinion that both sides, left and right, are frankly outright stupid.

First, let's say that The Government is overthrown. Yoo hoo! FREEDOM! Let's take a few days to celebrate. Now what? Do laws need adjustment and execution? Do streets need policing? Do fire need fighting? Do rights need protection? By the way, property is a right, so if you want it, you have to protect it. You know what's state of nature? The tiger eats the rabbits; that's law of nature. The queen bees order their workers around; that's law of nature. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, property, equality, etc. are all artificial constructs. So, don't tell me shit about natural rights. If you want rights, you protect it.

Again, what will make and execute laws? Police the streets? Fight the fire? Protect human rights? Bad guys don't magically turn into bunnies after a revolution. Hunger does not magically turn into feasts after a revolution. Enemies don't magically befriend after a revolution. What will do all the public works and coordinations?

Oh yes, a new government will. New government may do things differently from old one, no doubt. However, it must exist. Until all humans become saints (or, maybe until robots can replace all or most of human labor), something still need to maintain laws and orders, coordinate public works, and facilitate public discussions. What do you call that thing? Ah, the be-damned government.

Secondly, what do you think the government can do? And I am serious about this. If a land has 10ft of rain a year, a government can't make it rains 20ft. If crop fails, the government can't make it spring back to life. The government actually can't create any wealth. The government, by definition, governs. That means that it sets up the society to function. It can't make rain out of drought, land out of flood, gold out of lead, food out of dirt. It just can't.

Thus, overthrowing or replacing a government does not solve the scarcity of goods and wealth. If anything, such attempts will destroy trust, infrastructure, and wealth to such a degree that the attempted country would fall far behind its neighbor. Exhibit A: France and England. France is a bigger, more populous, and was richer than England. However, French Revolution made English Revolution look like child play. Guess who came out ahead? Hint: vast majority of developed "new world" countries (the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) speak English.

In other words, the government is a necessity, but is far from omnipotent. It's a social construct, just like, says, nations and churches and universities. Thus, to hate "The Government" is like hating the foxes for killing the chickens. It's just stupid.

That said, hating specific aspects or actions of the current government makes sense. All governments are far from perfect. Thus, by identifying problem areas, citizens can improve their governments and make their world a fairer place. Remember, a lot can be done without a bloody revolution. In fact, many a times, revolutions change little. Just ask the Chinese. Since the time of their unification, some 2300 years ago, their land has witnessed countless revolutions and rebellions. Guess what, up until quite recently (1905), there have been preciously little change in political situations. Reversely, the US, over slightly more than 200 years of her existence, has change enormously. Sure, there has been a bloody civil war, but what countries have not experienced that? (Hmm, maybe Canada; time to accuse Canada of not being a real country). However, the US today and the US in 1960s and the US in 1930s and the US in 1870s are vastly different places, and not just in term of economic growth. Today, a black man presides over the country. Such situation is not imaginable, let alone possible, when the Civil War ended (in fact, the Union is quite racist; as a reminder, they did not fight for the slave per se). Today, homosexual couples can marry. Today, children don't have to work to death to feed their family. Today, most people work only 40 hours a week. All of the above were achieved without major bloodshed.

Therefore, next time you say "I hate the government," be specific. You hate the support to poor children? Sure, then let poor children die. Or, you hate jobs from defense industry? Sure, let people go unemployed. You hate the fact that poor women can get abortion? Sure, let crime run wild. Note that I only list the worst consequences above. All of these consequences can be remedied, if you work on them. They don't magically disappear if you impeach your president. They definitely don't disappear just because you slaughter your fellow citizens in a revolution. So, fix the government if you has issues; don't let a few bad apples ruin your harvest.

Terrorism and Poverty

First thing first, my deepest condolences to France and her people. My heart is with them in this trial time.

In the wake of such terrorism, let's talk about what breeds such thoughts and actors. Hopefully, let's also talk about how to discourage such thoughts and prevent such actions.

It has been asserted, over and over, that terrorists themselves are not from dire situations. Many of them are from well-off, if not outright wealthy, families; many of them are exquisitely educated. This assertion has appeared over and over, as a mysterious puzzle over why such well-to-do people join such organizations and commit such action.

In fact, this reminds me of a related, but much more obviously racist puzzle: both indigenous Australians and Whites occupy Oceania. However, the former lived for thousands of years as hunter-gatherers, with barely any artifact to show; meanwhile, the latter, in the span of a few centuries, created a modern, literate, and very productive society. This would, naturally, lead to an assertion of how Whites are superior to those "missing links" between chimpanzees and humans. It's almost laughable, except that it caused deaths of millions; genocides are never laughing matters.

The whole assertion about the supposed divorce of poverty and terrorism, in my opinion, attempts to guide people toward such racist (well, this is discrimination based on religion, so religist?) conclusions. After all, well-to-do Christians don't seem to go around blowing up innocent people, right? Ergo, this must mean that Islam is bad.

Obviously, like all thoughtful deception, this lovely misdirection fails to cover quite a few glaring very strange behaviors.

First and foremost is this: if the problem is with Islam, why do those Muslims bother to travel all the way to the impoverished areas to organize? Seriously. There are sizable Muslim populations everywhere. Why not just setup an attack right from the belly of the enemies? Why bother traveling, with so many difficulties and risks, to Syria and Iraq and such?

Secondly, why do (organized) extremism only seem to flourish in impoverished areas? I mean, sure, the terrorists strike Western world here and there. However, the vast majority of them are from Africa and Middle East. Even within the US, the most obvious extremist groups can be found in poorer areas, i.e. the rural and the South. They may strike their neighbors, but they never seem to take root there.

Both of the points above can circle to this: the individual terrorists (especially the leading ones) may be well-to-do, but the environments that foster them are always poor. This is the clearest link between terrorism and poverty.

The question becomes: if poverty does not furnish terrorists (at least not exclusively), why do terrorism still require poverty to thrive?

Now, let's talk about people in general. Generally speaking, people are quite decent. They may do wrong, but, generally speaking, they know wrongness, and they either restrain or cover it up. It's call common decency, you know. And, a part of dignity is to uphold such decency.

Terrorists don't seem to have such decency. Or, at least, their decency is extremely low. As such, should persons be among normal (as in, not desperate) people, generally speaking, two things happen. Either decent people convert them over, or they destroy the decent people. The former case results in the millions (if not hundreds of millions) of people low in empathy but nevertheless non-violent and upholding social standards. The latter case, obviously, goes kaput.

But what if terrorist mindset meets with poverty and constant social unrest? Such situations fail the people, render them desperate. Desperate people bend much easier and are more open-minded to alternative social arrangement. Now, terrorists have 2 new choices: they terrorize the weak and court the strong. Weakened by hunger, split by internal struggles, stricken down by calamities to themselves and their close ones, people in such situation may be bullied into submission. Meanwhile, some of them may even support the cause of terror. After all, what have social standards and common sense done for them? And, remember, terrorists always blame it on others. If others have wronged you, what decency do you owe to them?

And thus, poverty provides the environment for terrorist seeds to grow. The seed may come from wealth, but it needs poverty to sprout.

How can we solve this problem, then?

Confucius once instructed 3 steps to grow a people: first, gather them; second, make them rich; third, teach them common sense. This order should be upheld strictly.

Here is my opinion on Afghanistan and Iraq situations: US invaded the 2 countries, hold political power over them, and I have yet to see their products anywhere. In fact, for progress, we occasionally hear of their "social progress," most notably women rights. And such is a recipe for disaster.

Now, I don't mean to belittle women rights. They are important. However, let's look at the situation from a poor man perspective, and I mean literally poor man. He sees his lot of life changes little; he still lives in poverty. Worse yet, previously, at least he once debased himself in front of his own people; now he debases himself in front of people of different countries and races. Where is his dignity now? Worse yet, his known world order was turned upside down. Women now parade over his head. And he got none of them (remember, we are talking about societies where women were considered as property to men). All he sees, thus, is lots of changes, uncertainty, shame, and quite little prospect of betterment. Lastly, the little betterment he enjoys may not mean that much. After all, when you are hungry, homeless, illiterate, what good does election do?

When a significant chunk of the population are impoverished and insulted (by the invasion of their country, obviously), one can't exactly blaming them for exploring alternative arrangements. Unfortunately, among those arrangements are racism, sexism, militarism, and whatever-discrimation-based-on-religion-calls. What do you get when you combine all of these above?

Remember Confucius' sequence: gather people, give them wealth, then teach them decency. Decency fights terrorism. Wealth (i.e. financial and food security) nourishes both decency and will-power. Without wealth, without food, without shelters, don't talk about social progress.

The Point of Democratic Government

As I slowly make my way through A People's History of the United States, the book keeps intoning an idea that, frankly, annoys the heck out of me. The idea this this: (democratic) election siphons revolutionary energy away from the oppressed people into the system.

Well, let's look at things the other way around. No government stands without at least some tolerance of its people. To give credo to the social contract idea, at some level, the population must consent that the current regime is acceptable. Generally, "acceptable" is a balance between oppression by the current regime and the blood and resources spilled for a new regime. When a significant enough faction of the population consider their government to be unacceptable, they can and do revolt to establish a new government.

Such is the democratic basis of undemocratic regimes. The people vote by their blood, with roughly 2 choices: to revolt or to endure.

Democratic government gives a new choice. A discontent people (which is to say, all people) have a new channel of expressing their discontentment: through actual voting. Well, generally speaking, a requirement for "democracy" is also freedom of speech, assembly, and of the press. So, a democratic regime allows multiple forms of opinion expression. In fact, with enough determination, a population can, and did, change its population quite dramatically over time without much blood shed.

Remember this: no regimes go away peacefully. At least, none that I know of, including Meiji Revolution. Each regime starts with a reign of terror (against old regime) and ends with a reign of terror (against the upcoming one). Some regimes (French First Republic, says) actually include periods explicitly named "Reign of Terror." Thus, a regime may kill off some of its oppressed citizens (intentionally or through negligence), those are pocket change compared to the mass killing that surely accompanies any change.

More disturbingly, revolutions don't necessarily result in improvement. In fact, most of them merely replace one group of rulers with another, or in fact degrade the status quo. With the risk of overly relying on French Revolution, let's consider its outcome. The revolution started against taxation and tyranny. It resulted in, gasp, an empire! And I am not sure if the First Republic was that good either: half of it is called "Reign of Terror." Numerous revolutions end this way. Think about Egypt during Arab Spring: its Twitter and Facebook wielding population ousted a dictator, then proceeded to elect Muslim Brotherhood, an alleged terrorist organization. Or think about assassination of Caesar (just to be clear, that assassination is merely a coup, which is much less bloody than a full-blown revolution).

Lastly, even if a revolution succeeds, its result have severe upper limits. More sadly, those limits are probably quite close to those of the old regime. Let's take French Fifth Republic (France is a fascinating historic case). For all intends and purposes, it is the ideal revolutionary: not that much blood, and the government was formed relatively quickly. And yet, when you think about it, France still experiences poverty, joblessness, and so on. After all, when you think about it, the regime may change, but most other things remain the same. If the country consists mostly of desert, it still can't feed itself after a revolutionary. If the people have been evading taxes, they probably would continue to evade taxes after a revolution. The government, after all, is not God. It can only rearrange, not make miracles.

Thus, the whole point of democracy is to avoid bloody revolutions. Democracy ideally fosters peaceful communication and problem solving so that the people don't need to vote with their blood.

To complain that democracy siphons revolutionary fervor is like to complain that wolves are cruel to deer. Sorry, dear, but that's the whole point. Revolutionary fervor probably drags millions to the graves with an uncertain future. Can a 50% chance of a hopefully better government be worth the blood and suffering of a revolutionary? Obviously, I am very generous here. History suggests that the chance is probably much lower. Can 10% chance of a slightly better government justify such sacrifice?

What Socialism is Really About

In U.S., "socialism" is, to put it mildly, a dirty dirty label. Few want it attached. Even leftists dislike the name. Funny enough, I am pretty sure that quite few people actually understand what that term actually means, and what those movements strive (or strove, on this side of the Atlantic and equator) toward. It's kinda like "gay." Or, frankly, "freedom" and "liberty." Now, the concept may be good or bad. The debaters must judge this for themselves. However, it is utmost important to truly understand what the terms and its bearers want, rather than arguing and condemning on stereotypical basis.

Let's start with the popular American understanding of the term. Generally speaking, "socialism" is believed to push for government and against competition. The haters would then tack on a bunch of additional attributes. For example, "socialism" is accused of tyranny (in the basis of its supposed advocate for government), thief (because of its supposed demand for taxes and wealth redistribution), and discouragement of hard-work (because of its support for welfare). As such, "socialism" is created by tyrants, sustained by ignorance, and beneficial to the lazy, the stupid, and the useless. Terrible concept, no?

Funny enough, if you actually read Marx and look over socialist history (up until, I guess, Soviet Union), socialism did not seem to like government. Marx wrote of government's withering away. Early socialists and anarchists (surprised!) allied with one another. Competition, on the other hand, did not receive that much attention. After all, when you think about it, economic competition (at least in terms of competing firms) is a relatively new concept. A hundred years back, there are just not that many corporations! In other words, real "socialism" bares little resemblance of popular American opinions. In fact, let us remind ourselves that Karl Marx and Adam Smith are classified as the same school of economic thoughts.

This should raise a big question: if socialism is not about government; if it does not suppress competition; then what is it about?

It's about alienation of labor. By the way, it's a bit sad that the term alienation has fallen somewhat from use. Beside "unalienable rights," we just don't seem to use the term that much anymore. Such a waste of a beautiful word. Either, I digress.

Socialism is about labor's alienation from its fruits, as well as from life, society, and humanity in general.

Let's start with the first: socialism is concerned that the laborers don't get all of the compensation that they deserve. (to put it in context, this is the exact reverse of popular American notion of socialism). Imagine a company. It sells its products for a pot of money, which is then used in 4 ways: raw ingredients, capital investment, wage, and profit. Now, you can see that the first 3 uses of the revenue is fair: without any of these, the company can't make its products. But, how about profit? Why should the stock owners, who did not sweat and labor on the company and its work, enjoy a share of its precious revenue?

Let us be remind that socialism was born from a time of rampage profit share. Of the 4 uses of revenue, a significant and growing chunk of money went to the stock owners. Meanwhile, the employees earned crumbs, worked in rundown, dangerous environment, and mother Earth was raped barren. Think back to 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries: back then, children had to work 60, 80 hours a week, yet their families could not earn enough for food, clothing, and shelter. Such was the cradle of socialism.

Worse yet, increasing specialization distanced the laborers from the meaning and the joy of their works. You have heard this type of expression over and over: "I love working as a teacher because I help kids grow," or "I want to be a doctor to cure people." However, when your job consists solely of, says, rolling the chalk piece, can you really see how your products (the chalk pieces) make somebody's life better? This type of alienation renders life lifeless. It turns humans into robots. Robots to increase some profit of some people.

Lastly, socialism accuses the relentless pursuit of profit magnifies the above alienation. In modern terms, when an investment banker look at a stock, the stories of how such firm makes the world a better place, the stories of its employees sweating over each and every details, the struggles for betterment of its future, its technologies, its customers, its suppliers, and its people, all of that are ignored. The banker only cares about, well, how well this stock will pay in a year. Worse yet, because of the way stock market works, steady stream of profit (says, $1Million a year forever) is not enough. The stock market wants increases. If a stock pays $1M today, its employees have better pay $2M next year. In this relentless race for more, all life and humanities are sucked out, replaced by heartlessness, cruelty, (in our times) outsource.

Socialism does not care about government. Early socialists' experience with government generally involved the governmental attempts on their arrest, tortures, and executions. Socialism does not care about competition. By the way, just as a reminder, neither does capitalist. The whole "competition" picture is a Reaganian fantasy for the mob. Capitalists have always been about building monopolies. Monopoly is much better for business than competition.

For socialism, government and competition, and even property right, are beneath its vision. It fights for fair compensation to the hard working, for enrichment of all people, for humanization of its species.
 
Now, there are many roads to Rome. To accomplish their goals (fair compensation and enrichment to the workers), socialists turned to various means. Back in the day (up until early 20th century), when inequality was massive and the workers were quite, well, far from enriched, the means was anarchism. Back then, socialists organized unions, called for and supported strikes, as well as threw rocks at national guards. Nowadays, the people are well educated (historically speaking at least), so socialist prefer more gentle methods, such as minimum wages, safety regulations, welfare systems, etc. The most important thing to remember, though, is this: socialism itself is above government and market and whatnots. All of these are simply means to ends. If they are usable, employ them; if they fight back, throw rocks at them (or build a picket line). They are merely means.

Socialism fight for fair compensation and enrichment of the people. That's all.

In Defense of The System

Roman Republic and Empire was a land of political upstarts. From Gaius Marius to Augustus himself to Diocletian, these men was born into merely middle class family or worse, but rose to eminence. In fact, the Roman had a name, novus homo, for those upstart. After the collapse of the empire, suddenly political upstarts ran away from Europe. Most glaringly, Byzantine empire, as byzantine as it was, continued to host self-made emperor: origin of Heraclius the Elder was so obscure that we continued to puzzle his birth place, yet his son claimed the purple. Meanwhile, Europe must wait for more than a millennium for an upstart to appear, in the person of Napoleon Bornaparte.

Here is the question: why did just about any political player in Medieval Europe need a lineage, while Byzantine emperors apparently did not? We like to think of competition as the gears of meritocracy. If competition is so great, then Western Europe, split into so many states and estates, should have produced tons of political upstarts, while Byzantine empire, with its intricate court and procedure and massive capital, should have frozen its imperial rank. Yet, the reverse happened. And when did upstarts start to appear again? Ah, after France squashed any kind of competition with its central power.

Modern Americans love the idea of chaos and individualism. Meanwhile, they despite the system and bureaucracy. To them, the system virtually always stands in the way. Except when it helps, of course, and they will belittle its power and assert their self-made-ness. As an extension of this, they hate government, bosses, support personnel (who work for the other side; their support personnel is useless without their genius), any team with more than maybe 5 members.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than software engineering. Frankly, I am sick of this question: "assume that you and the smartest guys are in the comfort of your own home, undisturbed by all of those, how long would it take to do foo?" The assumption? Well, bosses and earnings and teammates and geography and finance can only stand in the way. In fact, business dress of any manner generally stands in the way (SHORTS AND TSHIRTS FOR THE WIN). Only "the smart guys" matter.

But, let's be frank, smart guys are (as a rule of thumb) everywhere. Yet they succeeded in highly complicated society of Byzantine, yet failed in the supposedly free (at least freer than Byzantine) societies of Western Europe. Why? Wait, when one thinks really hard, Islam, for most of its history, supported excellence social mobility. Its founder, Prophet Mohamed Himself, started his life as a slave, and Islam spent most of its infancy fighting against richer, more established opponents. And let's not talk about China (the damned culture has almost half of its major dynasties founded by commoners and, gasp, barbarians).

Thus, the question reigns: why can't structure-free societies of Western Europe support "smart guys"? Why did they need to move to Byzantine empire and Muslim empire and China to start their dynasties? Reversely, why did they (and by "they," I meant "the Bornapartes") move back to France right after French royal unified and complicated their own court?

Here is my answer: because Byzantine and Islam and China and modern France have the system, the bureaucracy, and complications that allow smart guys to excel. I don't know if anyone notices, but most of great feats are very hard. They can't be accomplished by a few guys in a garage. Now, I don't mean to belittle a few guys in a garage: they do accomplish certain classes of things. However, building empires, turning business around, or merely crafting a feature-rich-plus-intuitive-plus-pretty-looking software for wildly different classes of customers are not among the things that a couple of guys in a garage can do.

To follow the grand tradition of root cause analysis: why can't a couple of guys in a garage build an empire? Or, less ambitiously (and more in topic), a feature-rich-plus-intuitive-plus-pretty-looking software for wildly different classes of customers? Let's tackle the empire. It's simpler. To build an empire, one needs to be trusted (surprised! Most citizens must tolerant a certain man for such man to be despot). By having a system and bureaucracy and shared culture norms in place, it's easy for one to earn trust, find accomplish (I meant, comrades), build teams, and do amazing feat. After all, those systems and bureaucracy take centuries to perfect, and culture norms take generations to root. Thus, it's easier to found a new dynasty in a well-organized (albeit complicated) society.

How about the aforementioned software? I mean, is the description of the software not enough to explain? A couple of guys in a garage setting excel at sharp focus. Without distraction (aka "support") from everyone, they are free to zero into whatever they deem important. This can produce amazing technical solutions. See the emphasize? Yeah. Technical problems can be solved with focus. However, a successful software is not merely technically superior (QWERTY keyboard debate, start!). It must also excel socially, commercially, and financially. It must woo new users with minimal initial interest. It must keep expert who controls public opinion. These requires way way more than mere technicality. Take, says, Emacs. In my opinion, its technicality is impeccably elegant: instead of trying to solve all problems with text editing, it provides a platform on which different groups can tackle different problems separately. Very smart, very elegant. Fucking hard to learn. Because the solution is so abstract (all good technical solutions are, at least for software), application demands a level of expertise that 99% of users can't supply. Guess what, Emacs is forever cursed as a niche product. An excellent product, but niche nevertheless.

Thus, we need systems. We need business people to pump the money, legal people to ensure our safety, customer service to hear from users, fulfillment center to deliver the goods, and a bunch of bosses to keep of of those out of our hair. Coding is hard. If I need to code while worrying about money and laws and customers' complain and whatnots, sorry, my brain has limits. Everyone's brain has limits. At least those limits are greater than the physical limits, which are extremely limited. Last time I check, I can't talk to customers while looking for laws to screw, I mean to help, them.

And, here comes the bureaucracy. And bosses. And lawyers. And consultants (now, I am about 90% those are truly useless).

Here is my humble opinion: complication don't necessarily make something bad. The world is wonderfully complicated: human species have studied it for way too many years to discover way too little. Yet, the world is not bad. It's wonderful, supportive to all (most of the time anyway). Similarly, bureaucracy and system and bosses ain't inherently bad and counter-productive. Occasionally they are. However, most of the time, they exist for a reason.

An engineer then has 2 choices: either fight them or use them. Which one are you using?

Why I Dislike Libertarianism

I am a young and college-educated professional. Thus, my expected political orientation gears toward libertarianism. You know, earning good money pushes one toward the right, as taxes loom greater of a concern than, says, the amount of welfare I collect. On the other hand, youth and college education ween me off any love of medieval beliefs, such as anti-abortion, homophobia, etc. Therefore, libertarianism presents an excellent compromise: lower taxes, yet still free to explore whatever philosophy and lifestyle strike my fancy. As a matter of fact, many of my friends tend toward this school of thoughts. And too many programmers (my kin, obviously) only proclaim their fondness for this political school.

However, I myself never like libertarianism. For one, I don’t like the rolling of the tongue to get the whole word out. For my accent, I must push out like 7 syllables to pronouce it. For such a youthful wing, their failure to a better name is quite remarkable! I mean, did they not learn anything from Ayn Rand? For a philosophy from a third-rate philosopher that is anything but objective, Objectivism sounds so good that one can’t help but like it. The name plays a huge marketing role, guys, so shape it up!

Anyhow, if you have not realized that I am kidding, I am kidding. I dislike long words, but the name alone does not arouse such suspicion. I mean, I like a lot of Eastern schools of thought whose names are just ridiculous. So, bad name is a joke.

In fact, for a long time, I am not sure why I don’t like libertarianism. I used to attribute such dislike to my general principle of disliking most right-wing stuff. But every time I look at libertarianism, a huge suspicion just pops up and haunts my mind. It feels very similar to a quest to avoid sweet and embrace broccoli: you know what you are supposed to like, you motivate yourself to like what you are supposed to, all the way until some invisible force (aka the sweet tooth) breaks down your will power and jumps at the dear dear dessert. Libertarianism is the opposite of dessert to me. I even bought books on the matter, and forced myself to read it. I gave up after about 3 chapters. Just can’t do it. Given that I can crank through 800 pages on Civil War, will power alone (or there lack of) can’t explain it. Must be something else.

I searched for that “something” for a long time. After all, I pride myself as an open-minded person. I always try on the other pair of shoes. I always believe that all ideas embraced by sufficient number of people are entitled to some degree of consideration. Thus, I continuously speculated on why I can’t stand libertarianism.

And one day, it hit me. By “it,” I meant, “why I hate libertarianism.” Not libertarianism. No, I still hate that school of thought. But, at least, I know why I hate it. There are actually 2 reasons, and both of which run against my core beliefs. No wonder I can’t stand the thing. And here they are.

First, libertarianism (and, to some degrees, the whole conservatism movement) divides the world into 2 camps: the good and the bad. The good is always good, and the bad always bad; there is no mixed, no gray area. An idea is either bad, and must be destroyed; or, it is good, and must be worshiped. There is no middle ground.

According to libertarianism, the government is bad. It’s just bad. Why is it bad? It’s political, which, to many people, is synonym for “dirty” and “tyranny” and “oppressive.” It’s artificial, which is synonym for “plastic” and “poisonous” and “unnatural.” In conclusion, it’s bad. And because the government is bad, all of its creations are bad. Paper money is bad. Infrastructure is bad. Taxes are especially bad. Welfare is extremely bad.

Reversely, the market is good. By the way, the image of the market conjured up by libertarianism is especially lovely. One can imagine a civilized bazaar, where all the sellers are honest and all the buyers are all-knowing. Oh, and the market is supremely natural, and has been around since forever. Similar to above, because the market is good, all of its creations are, by default, good. In fact, they would argue, with a straight face, that monopoly is way better than regulation.

Here lies the central difference between libertarianism and classical conservatism: Conservatives are, I think, quite romantic. They define God and Demon, but they also want heroes and myths. So, despite their hatred of Lucifer, I meant the government, they love the army, the police, and the church; they long for a good old day when love, traditions, and justice prevail. This romanticism, unfortunately, gets in the way of their otherwise black-and-white vision. Libertarians, meanwhile, hold no such follies. Army? Heroism? Traditions? All begone! One thing matters above all else: the classification of Good and Bad. And, sorry Pentagon, you are on the wrong side of the grand design of the universe. So bye bye.

Oh, and another difference between libertarianism and conservatism, the difference that renders the former utterly unbearable to me, while the latter merely distasteful. Conservatism is at least practical. After all, longing the past requires some sort of practicality. Otherwise, such past can’t exist. Libertarianism requires no such sentiment. Its greatest sentiment is the purity of its grand order of the universe. Again, in such universe, the government is bad, and the market is good.

This makes quite some comical expression of the world. I mean, Conservatism has some quite funny ideas (cutting taxes always raises the revenue, anyone?), but I can at least glimpse how their minds work. Libertarian expression of the world, on the other hand, is just purely comical to me. For example, they would say something like, politics is bad: it encourage people to cheat and step on each other. This, of course, I agree with. Then, they make a great jump: market, on the other hand, is good, because people will somehow turn 180 degrees and always compete fair and square. This is where I choke. Huh? So, the cheating, cruel bastards in the political world will just compete with only in quality and prices in the market. This brings to mind the collapse of 2008, the collapse of Enron, and about half a dozen other crises and crashes without me even trying.

Plus, the divorce with observation and careful study of the world (such time consuming process can be replaced with ideology, can it not?) leads to some very funny interpretations of history and predictions of the future. For example, they will reach back in some obscure merchant laws during medieval time to prove how natural and self-relient the market has been, and claim that the market will sustain the world if we just destroy the government. Well, then why did the medieval governments appear in the first place? (Need I remind everyone how oppressive these were compared to our gentle governments?) I mean, our species started out as small bands, without any government of any sort, like a bunch of monkeys. How did something so artificial as a government appear, if the market is so omnipotent and natural? By the way, this was not meant to be a rhetoric device. I seriously wonder how a libertarian explains that.

Enough with the design of the universe. There is another big reason why I hate libertarianism. It’s how irresponsible they are.

Should a libertarian group of people read that, they would jump up in protest. No, they ain’t irresponsible. Those liberals who can’t think for themselves are the irresponsible ones. They, on the other hand, never ask for anything from the government, and thus can’t be irresponsible.

It’s frankly hard to argue against such beautifully constructed argument. It is why Conservatism can claim responsibility for so long. When one pays the bills without external support, one is responsible, right? Well, kinda.

See, there are 2 types of costs: private and public. Private costs are the bills one pays. They are the prices of most goods and services that one consumes. They are not the only costs. There are public costs. For example, let’s say that you use a car. The private cost consists of the cost of maintenance and gasoline. However, there is another set of costs: the cost of pollution, the cost of building and maintaining the roads, social impacts (eg. noises and smoke) to the surrounding communities, etc. These are public costs.

The responsibility of Conservatism generally does not include public costs. That said, as mentioned above, conservatives are a romantic bunch, and they generally accept a subset of their public costs, especially those affecting their communities and legacies. Again, Libertarianism entertains no such romanticism. Like a true corporate, they deny any liability that they have the lightest chance of winning. And remember, in their fantasy of the marketplace, it will always drive the prices down to the lowest possible point. As such, they seek to always minimize their share of costs. If a firm destroy the world to make a cheap toys, well, that’s capitalism at work.

In fact, it is amazing how disconnected their complaints and solutions are. For example, they would moan loudly about the size of public debt. Yet, they would not pay a cent to it, if not forced to by laws. And in fact, they would fight tooth and nail to reduce the amount they have to pay. Never mind the debt will naturally grow (interest rate, anyone?); never mind that the roads and infrastructure they use require maintenance. If they don’t own something, it’s not their responsibility. So laughable.

In conclusion, my dislike of libertarianism turns out to be quite rational! After all, who want to live with holier-than-thou narcissist who refuse his portion of the public costs? Phew, they make me doubt my own rationality for quite a while (a few years!), which is quite a feat. Anyhow, now you know why Libertarianism is poisonous. It’s a set of fantasy that is proven by bad math and supported by pure narcissism (at this point, selfish is such a overly used word that it lost its bite). Let’s move away from it.

Please, for the love of all that is good, stop bashing "the Government"

You know, it is extremely hard to read from one's opponents. It's not that their ideas are so outrageous that you want to crush them under your thumbs like a bug. No, not really. Frankly, during my many many day dreams on many many issues, I have pull together strange ideas. Obviously, once I wake up and re-calibrate my reasoning system, those strange ideas fizzle out like fire under a Reno rain (in case you don't know, Reno does not have light rain; it either sparkles under the sun or storms like there is no tomorrow).

No, reading from your opponent is hard because they have strange assumptions that you just can't understand. Let's be frank here: most people have roughly the same goals (you know, get rich, be happy, make the world more just, etc.) and use roughly the same set of logical reasoning tools. Yes, most people, from far left to far right, do share the goals and the logics. They disagree because they have different starting points, or assumptions. It's like this: two people want dinner outside; they have the same goals (food!) and they drive roughly similar vehicles (cars, let's say, or scooters, or whatever); however, if one person is in New York, and another is in China, you can be pretty sure that they will eat a different places. Same goals, same tools, different assumptions will lead to very different places.

One of the biggest difference between myself (I prefer not to talk about others) and the rough collection of "conservatives" and "libertarians" crowd is this: in my mind, the government and the state are just things; you know, like guns don't kill people, people kill people; in their minds, the government (wait, it's usually like this: THE GOVERNMENT) is Satan, the source of all evils that roam the surface of the earth. I remember Mr. Obama once joked that Republican part seem to have one cure for all woes: more tax cuts. It's funny, and it actually illustrates this difference very well. From my point of view, the government is a thing, dangerous and extensive, but a thing nevertheless; from their point of view, the government is Evil and needs to be purged before anything good can happen.

What is the government? Let's start at the basics. What is, exactly the government. For that matter, what is a state? What does it do? What can it do? Why does it exist? How did it become what it is today?

Let's remind ourselves of this: all humans once lived in small bands. This is undisputed truths. From science to religion, humans started at small bands. So, back in the days, there was no extensive government, no states, no nations, nothing. Back in the days, all humans lived in egalitarian societies where no one ruled anyone else. Eden, a Christian might call it. Equality and freedom reigned supreme.

The question becomes: why would anyone, for the love of freedom and liberty and all of that romantic concepts, abandon Eden and build States? And keep this in mind, the earlier a state, the more brutal it seem to be. This question should especially trouble libertarians. After all, religious Conservatives can answer this simply: God kicked us out, so bye bye Eden. But if you disavow God, you have to find an answer to that dilemma. Why did those bastards build governments that rule us until this day, wreak us countless miseries and pain, spill so much of our blood and rob so much of our money? Why, stupid ancestors, why?

Before we continue: dear ancestor, the words above are purely rhetoric; please pardon my disrespect.

A government, simply put, is the governing body of a society. Usually, people would say things like "it makes laws, builds public works, etc." However, this actually belies an important fact. A government is a mechanism, a institution, an organization. "It" does not do anything. "It" simply obeys whatever its owners want. The government does not make laws. The people make laws through the their representatives in Congress. The government does not print money. The people authorize the money printing through selection of specialists in Federal Reserve system. The government does not make war. The people make wars through their elected officials in two branches of the government. The government is a set of institutions, laws, bureaucracies, regulations, etc. that the owners of a society use to make mutual decisions.

Thus, saying "the government robs your money" is like saying "the safe hoards money." Yes, the safe takes money out of your pocket; yes, the safe prevents you from spending that money. However, the safe does not exactly, you know, spend the money on itself or anything. Last time I checked, the safe still can't go out and buy a luxurious car or go to the bar and woo the girls. And when it can, I am pretty sure the discussion will be very different. Similarly, the government can't exactly use your money to enrich itself. I mean, the poor White House is just a fancy house. It just stands there. Now, the President, the senators, the representatives, etc. can and do use your money to enrich themselves. However, that means they are bad politicians. The government itself, as an institution, can't do that!

Talking about bad politicians: I always feel that Conservatives and Libertarians speak of "the government" and "Washington (D.C., not the state)" a bit strange. Strangest ones? The very politicians who run for office as "outsiders" and put in very bad words about "Washington." I mean, when Ron Paul or whoever (I just pick Ron Paul since I am working very very hard on a book from Libertarianism) claims that, says, "Washington" is this or that, I lost all respect for that person. When you have been in an institution for years, if not decades, when you have been the most esteemed member of that institution, you don't have a right to bash it. If it is corrupted, it is your responsibility. Claiming that you are "maverick" is a sick joke. Who is "Washington"? Why, Ron Paul is. You know, at my workplace, if you have been there for 6 months, people regard you as an old hand. You can no longer say shit like "their way is stupid." It's your way now, so fix it or shut up. Similarly, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and the whole set of junkies should really be ashame of themselves. I have yet to hear anyone taking responsibility. They all sing the same song: "Washington" is corrupted, elect me to fix it; oh, btw, the fact that I have been there does not count. What?

Same thing, but to a lesser extend, can be said of most Conservatives who complains about "Washington." Let's face it, "Washington" is not an external monster spawned by Satan to rule you. It consist of people who you yourself, along with your fellow citizens, voted in less than 4 years ago (sometimes less than 2 years). I firmly believe that voting is not complaining; it's institution building and decision making. During an election, everyone has the responsibility and right to teach and to communicate with everyone else about the decisions and representation for the next few years. "The government of the people, by the people, for the people" cannot, by itself, corrupt. If it is corrupted, the reason lies in the very citizens who elect the corrupting elements into it.

Enough of ranting. One more important point I want to raise: many of our social goals are, by definition, governmental action. For example, what does "establish Justice" mean? It means fair laws and impartial enforcement. Both making laws and enforcing them lie in the responsibilities of the government. Thus, to establish Justice, We the People have to do it through the government (mostly through election of worthy people to draft laws, discussion and feedback about current laws, as well as vigilant monitoring of the enforcers). Similarly, "provide common defense" generally involves the government, through either militia (feudal modal, or early American model) or professional armies. Both options require central command and coordination, and this command and coordination must obey civil authority. Beside the government, few other options can satisfy this difficult position: very powerful (the army is the most violent aspect of any society) yet cannot be supreme (or dictators will prevail).

Lastly, let's never forget about what the government has allowed us to achieve over the centuries. I mean, I don't want to strip off the credit of any other mechanisms. For example, yes, markets did provide us with abundance in material goods. However, let's not kid ourselves. Even with all of the productivity gains over the centuries, we still have child labor wherever laws either allow or are not properly enforced. Laws and its impartial enforcement end child labor, along with hosts of other issues. In fact, laws allow the market to thrive. Think about it: how natural is "corporations as humans"? Or how natural is "limited liability"? An eye for an eye, blood must be paid with blood. Such were the ancient ethos. It sounds quite fair, but high risk prevents effective investment. Corporations limits both, and the market thrives. Without governmental involvement, how can such unnatural (and frankly, sometimes, unfair) thing exist, let alone thrive? Thus, the government is not pure evil: it can do good; its citizens just need to be vigilant.

Let's end this long ramble with the answer to the question posed above. Why did humans move away from Eden? Jared Diamonds (one of my favorite author) attempted in answer. He observed that efficient societies, much like well-fit species, survived and conquered inefficient ones. This makes quite a bit of sense. In such cases, one can venture this observation: a state is more efficient than egalitarian bands. But how can this be? I mean, if you believe whatever spilling of modern Libertarianism, you would conclude that early humans would simply form markets, become super productive, and never bother to form states and governments. But history proved otherwise. Humans abandoned Eden for states and governments. Why? Because they can be useful. If only their owners know how to use them.

Thus, please, for the love of all that is good, stop blaming the government. It's innocent. Blame the irresponsible politicians, the opportunist law-makers, and the half-asleep voters. In other words, let's take responsibility and blame ourselves for our messes. And let's fix them. Not blaming the evils.

Python is a horrible horrible teaching programming language

I have never particularly liked Python. I mean, as a programmer, I consider any coercion into a particular way of doing thing an insult. Thus, the whole there-is-only-one-way-to-do it and benevolent-dictator affairs have never rhyme with my personal philosophy. But I always restrained from criticizing Python. After all, I have never used Python extensively, and my contact with it has never resulted in enough pain for me to hate it.

Well, life changed. I was forced into Python by a class. An algorithm class no less. I love algorithm and theories. Everything there is shiny and flawless, with no wiggle rooms for bugs and the likes. Plus, programming in these situation excites: the problem is well-defined, the graders favor style over pesky optimization, and the solution is polished. This is the exact reverse of profession work, where the result (not the code, but its effect) is everything, and pretty code costs night and weekend (plus lots and lots of fighting).

When I first realized that my class requires Python, excitement actually prevailed briefly. After all, if you ever search for something like "python teaching language," you would see people say all of those glorious things about how python is absolutely beautiful for teaching. I have never liked Python's tyrannical philosophy. However, well, this is a golden chance to learn Python right on its own turf. Maybe I would like it. Maybe my opinion would match that of my friend (apparently Python grew on him after a while). Maybe.

Well, Python crushed my hope with its stupidity (seriously, I have no other names for this), bad design, and generally annoyance to use.

Firstly, let me be very frank: I miss type declaration. I miss it. I mean, production code can sustain lack of type declaration much better than academic code. Why? Because you have tests and documentations and an expectation of proficiency in the language to fill in the blank. Academic code delivers on idea, not execution. So, it should be readable without compiler, without running, without tests, and with minimal documentation. For goodness' sake, the code itself is the documentation of the text (have you read computer science paper? The code explains the English). However, without type declaration, it's impossible to figure out how to use a value without context. Each solution skeleton in my class has 10 lines of comments to to explain the expected type and usage of the input and output. Like 100+ characters which can be easily written in 10 characters in Java or C#. Seriously.

Another thing on type declaration: people keep whining about how much characters they waste. Well, let's ignore my comment on the necessary comments for dynamically typed inputs and outputs, and assume for a moment that you can read the mind of the coder to know how those things should be used. Will dynamic typing save a lot of waste in that case? The answer is no. Remember, we are talking about academic, teaching situation here. The most important virtue here is readability, not efficiency. This generally leads to quite small functions with very few extra variables declaration aside from input of functions, and most of these extra variables are counters (you know, i, j, k, etc.). In most cases, the variables are values passed between functions. You will have to declare them as arguments anyway. Furthermore, because those variables are interfaces between functions, one often wants to document how they should behave, aka write out the types. Thus, the saving here is minimal, if at all. And the readability of dynamic types goes down the drain thanks to the comments.

Talking about variable declaration, since when is declared-when-first-used easy to read? Again, this may be so in production code, where everyone deals with the same set of code days over days. In academic settings, this is bullshit. To determine what the variable should be, one has to look for its first use, usually in the thick of processing. I remember how Pascal was adamant about all variables declared right at the beginning. The requirement stands for a reason: you know, loud and clear, what each variables should behave. No need to read through the code, no need to guess and assume. This helps readability of massive amount of code at once without warming up time. This helps academic code.

Well, let's get over the stupidity of variables and their types. Let's talk about Python inability as a programming language. See, my instructors seem to like something call Numpy a lot. I get it, it's for numerical computation. However, numpy imposes a different set of containers, with vaguely similar syntax but mutually incompatible with Python built-in containers. What does this mean? Either one of two things must be true: Python does not provide a set of interfaces (think List in Java and C#) that is general enough to do things with, or Numpy people are fundamentally stupid and lazy. I pick the first reason. I trust the people. I distrust dictators. This is kinda like Go and APL (never used, only passing insult here; maybe incorrect). Basically, in those languages, all users are bastards who can't do things well. Thus, the only way to actually do anything beside the wills of the language creators is to write fundamentally separated interfaces that resemble the base language. Python is worse: because the variable are dynamically typed, you can't know for sure what the hell is in there. So, if you receive an array, be sure to check where it is from (no type, remember) before doing division and put some numbers in it. Put float in an int array, which is usually OK, may destroy your program.

Oh, this refers me to a third problem: the necessary to run the program to see obvious flaws. I frankly don't understand the whole cheering over runtime error rather than compilation error. It's beyond stupid. In fact, it is an insult to the learners, consider them incapable of reading code. Why? Compilation errors are obvious. Remember, if a computer can pick it up, a reasonably-trained human can. Runtime errors, on the other hands, are subtle and hard to pick out. For example, division of a number over a string can be either a compilation error (since variable must be typed) or run time error. The former case can be picked out easily by human (let's face it, human can read a string variable declaration); the latter cannot (um, what is that variable types again?). When everything is forced to be spelled out, everything is clear. Humans can read them, with or without computers. When everything is, "trust me, it's fine," well, sorry, I don't trust myself to not mistype things.

Btw, I should also point out that this is another difference between production and teaching code. In production, most of the time, you frankly don't know what is supposed to be the solution. At least I don't. So, the usual process involves trying things out, see what happens, then finally code up a final solution based on the evidence (this is especially true for more complicated bugs or novel situations). In class, the reverse is true. The learners start with a class of knowledge to try out, and the code's purpose is to express that knowledge in a more concrete terms. This is true for both theory and more practical classes. Again, each class would have a set of concepts, and the learners should solve the problems by these before coding. Thus, most issues with the code can be picked up by compilation, either by eyes or by machine. Lastly, since teaching code demonstrates a concepts, often it does not need to be run at all. The graders would just compile it in their head, goes through the logics, and give feedback. In such case, runtime errors are terrible. They hide hideous bugs while provide incentives to hack things together. Hacking is not the point of knowledge transfer. Hacking is for production.

Finally, let's talk about indentation. Another big selling points of Python: hear ya hear ya, your code's readability is enforced by your intepreter. Yeah. Let alone the fact that the interpreter fails to detect hosts of issues until runtime, let alone the fact  that input values' behaviors are undefined by default, let alone the fact that basic types may be unusable. Python will help your cosmetic to look good! Bow down to pretty code! This sickens me every time. I used to be TA for a Scheme-based class. Every time (and I meant every time), the love of the students to Scheme would jump about 5-fold after I taught them correct indentation, and they would do this without the compiler acting like Hitler. Every programmers with a few months of experience would indent reasonably well for most C-like programming language. Furthermore, given that teaching code is usually short and sweet, this whole concept of coercion of style is generally useless. On the other hand, I have yet to notice any standardization in naming (you know, internalCapitalization vs. underscores_for_spaces). Maybe I am too green, but it seems like people just do what the hell they like here. Again, teaching code is short and sweet, so this kind of styles matter a great deal. But of course, it's impossible to enforce (maybe Python should outlaw underscore in names, or outlaw mid-name capitalization).

Frankly, here is my impression of Python and its cheerleaders: Python is great for very very beginners whose only interest is to show off. It is very fast to punch in something resembling good code. It is very fast if you don't do anything major. It is very fast to get buggy code "running." However, as soon as you put any serious logics in, Python crumbles like worms under someone's shoes. Its code needs serious context (either comments or the usage site) to make sense; its abstraction layer is lacking; its compilation system cares more about cosmetic than sustain. Basically, everything is wrong. On top of that, it lacks any kind of mind-twisting advancements (I am thinking about Lisp and Rust) or pliability for hacking and playing (I am think about Perl, of course, but C is a good example). It's like a dumb dictator: insists on minor styles but lets bigger problems go unchecked. I sincerely hope I won't cross path with it again. Ever.

The Wrong Public Discussion

Most public discussions (at least most public discussion that I heard or read) these days aim at completely and utterly wrong goal. They are generally organized into a competition of sort, with two sides attempting to establish who is "right." Both sides would present all kinds of arguments, from real to outright made-up, from statistics to religious texts, from rational to emotional, to convince the other and an audience that they are The Right Way. Strangely enough, although they always state their goals as convincing and changing minds, this kind of discussions rarely, if ever, convince anyone or change any mind. In fact, people (from the competitors to the audience) usually believe more strongly to pre-discussion beliefs after each discussion. Now, don't get me wrong, they entertain well. They resemble gladiator fight, except more cultured and less violent. However, fun usually hinders productivity. In this case, it just throws productivity out of the window. After all, how can you reach an agreement when each discussion drives the participants a little further? Thus, the democratic government becomes tyranny of the momentary majority, who tries to push as many of their policies out as possible while they retain majority. And the whole country suffers.

When you think about it, winning rarely matters in public discussion. After all, most, if not all, countries in existence have done just about wrong things in the books. Does a country kill? When outsiders threaten the lives and dignity of her citizens, when the future of her children is at risk, a country would kill. Does a country discriminate? Citizens risking lives and limbs are treated differently, and justly so, from criminals. However, the differences between defensive and offensive wars, as well as between wars and concentration camps, as well as between medals to veterans and racism, are vast. A country killing its enemies is different from one sending minority to concentration camps; a country decorating its heroes is different from one denouncing a whole race to servitude.

Thus, for public matters, the question is not what. A country, and its government, should, and would, do anything for its citizens. The question is how and when. When a country goes to war determines its foreign policies. How a country discriminates between citizens speaks of its soul and values. All other matters are similar. A country will print money, in both deflation and hyper-inflation. A country will impose taxes and duty, in boom and in bust. A country will re-distribute wealth, upward or downward, fair or indiscriminately. Public discussions, likewise, should concern itself mostly with how and when. They should always aim at a well-rounded compromise with manageable risk.

Remember: compromise is not about lack of principles. After all, a person without principles does not need to compromise, for such person has nothing to compromise. No agreements go against his principles, because he has none. Compromise means recognition the lack of omnipotence: everyone makes mistakes, so let's manage the risk and ensure that all voices, all values contribute to the end result. Furthermore, when a person discusses with compromise in mind, her ego is not on the line, and she can decide without losing. When noone loses, everyone wins, and public discourse can proceed.

I sincerely hope that as 2016 looms, our discussion will gear away from "winning vs losing," and toward actions and results. After all, I gain nothing when my representatives win, but I will lose a lot when they spin the wheels. Let's get moving!